What — Bahareh Khoshooee

you're freaking out ok

Pigasus is a reference to the 1968 campaign by the Youth International Party: Pig for President. Pigasus, a 145-pound domestic pig, was nominated for president of the United States as a theatrical gesture. Utilizing satire as a practical form of resistance, Yippies appropriated the idiom ‘when pigs fly’ in order to represent the absurdity of the socio-political predicament that Americans were coping with. Humor and theater became their peaceful and yet trenchant weapons throughout the protests.

Appropriating Yippies’ technique, my installation has become a response to our current socio-political state. A female superhero, my alter ego Ba Bi Bu, runs through alternative realities, while gazing at the viewer and exposing her tongue out of her mouth. She has brought the flaring Pigasus back once again: to save humanity, to ridicule the authorities. The other video piece in the exhibition is titled Depends on the Sun’s Angle. In that video, a female character is trying to operate a nose job with clear tape while taking selfies with a pig doll. The juxtaposition between the two pieces to me is reflective of the current state of mind that many younger people are struggling with. The abundant access to information and news combined with social media culture has resulted in a virtual sub-culture that is constantly trendisizing social actions.

Pigasus

Pigasus was a 145-pound (66 kg) domestic pig who was nominated for President of the United States as a theatrical gesture by the Youth International Party in 1968, just before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The youth-oriented party (whose members were commonly called ‘Yippies’) was an anti-establishment and countercultural revolutionary group whose views were inspired by the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s, mainly the opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

Yippies were known for using dramatic theatrics in their demonstrations, and they used Pigasus as a way to mock the social status quo. At a rally announcing his candidacy, Pigasus was confiscated by Chicago policemen and several of his Yippie backers were arrested for disorderly conduct.

Source

A carnival float depicting former US President Donald Trump as a suckling pig being roasted on a fire that reads "Make America Great Again!!!" during a slimmed down version of the traditional Rose Monday parade on February 15, 2021 in Duesseldorf, western Germany.